Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a last minute stop in Winnipeg to promote his childcare agenda at a YMCA daycare on March 29th. After a photo-op with a bunch of children, the kids were moved out of the room alongside Trudeau, only to return a few minutes later to take questions from the press.

I was granted a media pass to the event, waited patiently for a few hours and was not allowed to ask a question at the microphone. So, I took it into my own hands and between questions, I loudly asked my question for the Prime Minister to hear from a mere 5 feet away. The media was being pre-screened for questions and no real questions were being asked.

I confronted Trudeau on the carbon tax, which will not only be a tax on everything as companies are forced to raise their prices which affects everyone’s wallet, but it also forces impoverished families, especially in rural communities, to choose between heating their home and buying groceries in the winter.

It will bankrupt companies who export goods and puts Canada at a huge disadvantage when it comes to competition.

This all goes back to Maurice Strong and Norway’s Gro Harlem Brundtland, who pushed forward the first climate change depopulation agendas back in the 1970s.

Today, under the United Nations’ Agenda 2030, there is an organized globalist push to completely destroy any fossil fuel industries, depopulate the world, and tax everyone on their carbon footprint, which is in the negative on average in Canada.

Canada’s carbon output only makes up for about 2% of the global footprint. The carbon tax will simply make it impossible for Canadian companies to compete against businesses in foreign countries and puts a stop on small business competition as major corporations continue to be monopolized by the state.

Remote work (or telework, telecommuting, whatever you want to call it) has been taking off in recent years as employers have looked to take advantage of modern technologies that divorce the ability to get work done from the need to be colocated. But we’ve been seeing something of a backlash against this shift, with several high-profile companies rolling back remote work benefits for employees. The latest example is also the most significant: IBM, considered by many to be one of the first (and perhaps the biggest) companies to fully embrace remote work, is now calling its employees back to the office. Quartz reports:

IBM had decided to “co-locate” the US marketing department, about 2,600 people, which meant that all teams would now work together, “shoulder to shoulder,” from one of six different locations—Atlanta, Raleigh, Austin, Boston, San Francisco, and New York. Employees who worked primarily from home would be required to commute, and employees who worked remotely or from an office that was not on the list (or an office that was on the list, but different than the one to which their teams had been assigned) would be required to either move or look for another job. Similar announcements had already been made in other departments, and more would be made in the future.

But IBM’s decision underscore one of the biggest problems with remote work: it can alienate workers and prevent valuable informal social interactions between employees. Quartz has more:

Team proximity appears to help foster better new ideas. One Harvard study found that researchers who worked in close physical proximity produced more impactful papers. Another report used data from badges that collect data on employee interaction to argue that employees who have more chance encounters and unplanned interaction perform better. This idea, known as the “water cooler effect,” has been embraced by the most successful technology companies…“The surprising question we get is: ‘How many people telecommute at Google?’” Patrick Pichette, then Google’s CFO, said in a 2013 talk. “And our answer is: ‘As few as possible.’”

Even as remote work becomes normal, IBM isn’t alone in placing an emphasis on working together in person. Yahoo made headlines in 2013 when Marissa Mayer made an abrupt decision to end Yahoo’s remote work policy, and companies like Reddit and Best Buy have, like Yahoo, formally co-located their teams within the last several years. It’s not that remote work didn’t have benefits—Best Buy, for instance, reported in 2006 that productivity had on average increased 35% in departments that shifted to working from wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Rather, it’s that working together, in person, has a different set of benefits. Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do something new. Doing what it has always done, but better, won’t cut it.

There is something ironic about a company deciding that the only way it can innovate is by returning to an older, more tried-and-true method of working. That said, there’s something to be said for face to face interactions, and it’s clear that there’s a balance to be struck—studies have suggested that there’s a teleworking sweet spot between two and three days a week. Finding that Goldilocks level of remote work is difficult, and it obviously varies company to company, but the benefits are too great to shy away from the challenge.

Reactions to Trump show that elites are also susceptible to collective moods.

When a CNN correspondent asked a female protester on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, about her response to the new President’s Inaugural address, she laid her head back and howled like a wounded animal. To many Americans it seems as if it is all coming apart—and not just Americans. Even from here, in Norway, the venting of spleens is the new normal.

Commentators of renown are competing to generate the direst forecast of the Trump era. The bronze medal goes to Bernard-Henri Lévy and his catchy “dark tide of vulgarity and violence.” Robert Kagan’s “This is how fascism comes to America” wins silver. But the gold surely goes to Joseph Stiglitz for his claim that Trump is spreading fear in a way “that would make any terrorist proud.”

In academic literature this phenomenon—widespread fear of a great evil spreading unchecked throughout society—is referred to as “moral panic.” The Oxford Dictionary of Sociology defines it as “the process of arousing social concern over an issue—usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media.” Pent-up uneasiness over societal change finds focus in one particular case.

Moral panics are interesting because elites are as receptive to them as common folk. This year’s BAFTA, Grammy, and Oscar award ceremonies were marked by compact contempt for the American people’s elected representative. In Europe, seasoned journalists are drawing parallels between Trump and the 1930s; putting their own breathtaking lack of historical perspective on display. Of course there are historical parallels to Trump, but the quick leap to Adolf Hitler doesn’t illuminate any of them.

The popularity of this reductio ad Hitlerum argument points to perhaps the key feature of moral panics: the loss of proportionality and perspective. Moral entrepreneurs and other merchants of outrage intensify and rationalize the panicked response and then point to the reaction such analysis provokes among the like-minded as proof that they are speaking the truth.

Many seem to forget that President Trump is merely making good on the promises of his campaign. As Francis Fukuyama recently wrote in the Financial Times: “Contrary to his critics, Trump does have a consistent and thought-through position: he is a nationalist on economic policy, and in relation to the global political system.” He is similarly unhappy about America’s traditional allies whom he sees as freeriding on American power. Trump wants to renegotiate the liberal status quo, not overthrow it altogether.

President Trump won the election on a promise of change—not kumbaya-change à la Obama but cold, hard change of the kind that pains your enemies and benefits you and yours: America first. Trump now sits atop a system that, as a whole, does not share this ambition. It is therefore to be expected that in order to effect change, he would come into conflict with other commanding heights of American society. Places where the elites—which Trump defines as President Obama and many of his predecessors—have sought to entrench the status quo as the final form of government.

If one sets aside moral panic, one can see the controversy about the temporary entry ban for refugees, in part, as a power struggle between the Executive and the Judiciary over control of the borders. The conflict with the media, likewise, can be seen as a power struggle over the right to define societal truth—about values rather than facts. The dispute with the intelligence services is also, at least in part, a fight over the bureaucracy’s loyalty to elected representatives. Controversies over trade agreements concern the balance between market and state, involving, by extension, a critique of the eventual universal benefits of free trade, which is the core rationale for globalization.

Some will resist the very notion of treating Trump as a rational actor. Recently a gaggle of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers warned in the New York Times about Trump’s mental health in an apparent breach of their own profession’s ethical injunctions against remote diagnosis. Their assessment was partly motivated by the President’s nocturnal Tweets. Now, no one can deny that his tweeting and public persona are, at the very least, unconventional. But great care must be taken to distinguish clinical diagnoses from the personal, non-professional view that liberalism is synonymous with rationality.

This assumed monopoly on rationality is confirmed by the eye-rolling satirical shows from which surprisingly many educated people get their news and views. These shows are not funny in a LOL sense; rather they deliver a different feel-good commodity: prejudice confirmation. Satire has only recently become a byword for taunting one’s ideological opponents. John Oliver provides essentially the same service as Alex Jones in this regard. Both peddle cheap tribalism—the fact that one is Cambridge-educated only reflects that the liberal tribe likes to have their bigotry wrapped in university-level invectives. I mention this because confusing opposing views with irrationality is a recurring theme in panics.

There is a long history in the West of communities suffering something resembling a collective panic attack. Most are familiar with the history of witch-hunts on both sides of the Atlantic—from Salem to to Würzburg. Since then, Western societies have intermittently experienced waves of moral panic, some more justified and others less so. Geoffrey Pearson’s delightful book Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears (Macmillan, 1983) contains a treasure trove of newspaper quotes from assorted panics. To choose one: “For the first time in a century and a half, since the great conservative reformer Robert Peel set up the Metropolitan police, areas of our cities are becoming unsafe for peaceful citizens by night, and some even by day.” No one is safe!

The United States experienced two “red scares” (1917–20 and 1947–57) driven by fears that communists were subverting American society. More recently, in the 1980s, the AIDS panic swept across much of the West, ably described in David France’s new book, How to Survive a Plague. Since then we have had a number of other scares motivated by everything from drug abuse to rape to video games and Dungeons & Dragons. In the early 1990s in Norway, sociologist Eva Lundgren lit the fuse on a moral panic over an imaginary satanic cannibal cult. In the 2000s a few clashes between biker and immigrant gangs led the docile Danes to fear an incipient civil war.

There is surprisingly little scholarship on collective emotions in general, and moral panics in particular. A notable exception is Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics (Routledge, 1972). Cohen dissects the moral panic that swept across Britain and that found focus in the “war” between Mods and Rockers in 1964. The following year, The Who released the album My Generation, which for many confirmed their belief that civilization itself was at stake.

Cohen ties moral panic to media coverage. The media often cover a phenomenon in such a way that the coverage itself becomes a symbol of a break with established norms, and then that break is taken as further evidence that one element in society is spoiling things for everyone else. The media heightens the sense of panic by focusing on reactions to the phenomenon without considering whether the reactions are justified or proportionate. Panic thus breeds more panic.

Cohen argues that moral panics can also be seen as by-products of unresolved issues that are controversial but nevertheless not openly discussed because they touch on cultural taboos. For conservatives such taboos include sexual minorities, feminism, and ethnic minority identity politics, while liberals feel ill at ease discussing white ethnicity, Western culture, and national identity. The negative feelings directed at Trump reflect understandable distaste and disagreement, not all of it exaggerated, to be sure. But the intensity of some of the disgust on display seems driven by the fear and loathing that many feel merely when confronted by a political agenda other than their own.

This is not to say that there is no rational basis whatsoever for Trump fears in the United States. The U.S.-led West is very much an “empire of the mind”—a network of reinforcing intersubjective premises—given strength by institutions, norms, and rules built up over many decades.

Indeed on that score there does seem to be cause for concern. Trump seems to misread profoundly how the prevailing national and international orders work, and to what purposes they should be directed. For that reason he will likely trigger countervailing forces at home and abroad that will seek to balance against his policy objectives. Nevertheless, Trump’s more unhinged critics run a similar danger of misreading the strength, elasticity, and purpose of democracy. There is a deeply anti-democratic undercurrent to much of the criticism of the new President, borne aloft by an assumption that democracy is too important to be left to the voters. That undercurrent is perhaps no less dangerous in the long run than the President’s own flaws.

Italian millennials 'won't reach financial independence until age 50'

By 2020, the average 20-year-old Italian will have 18 years to wait before living independently, researchers estimated. The milestone of 'independent living' was measured by a number of factors, including having a home, steady income, and the ability to support a family.

The figures come from a report by the Bruno Visentini Foundation, 'Generation gap, from conflicts to solidarity', presented at Luiss University on Wednesday morning.

Researchers said that Italians who had turned 20 in 2004 could expect to be living independently within ten years. However, that figure has increased steadily and is set to reach 28 years by 2030.

In other words, today's children can only expect to have 'grown up' once they're nearing their 50's. According to the foundation's research, the generation gap in Italy is the second-worst in Europe, beaten only by Greece.

The study's authors presented some possible solutions to the crisis, including an overhaul of the tax system and extra funds for youth policies.

They called for "a pact between the generations", which would require around a million elderly Italians - those receiving the most generous pensions - to make a "solidarity contribution". This money would go to help 'Neets', the Italian term for young adults who are neither employed nor enrolled in a study programme.

Together with more tax incentives for the young, and "the creation of financial instruments which can multiply the effect of the solidarity pact", these measures could help millennials on their way to financial independence sooner.

According to the researchers, such a change is necessary "not just for ethical reasons, but also for socio-economic ones."

They estimated the cost of young adults, aged between 15 and 29 who are neither studying nor working, to the Italian economy to be €32 billion each year - a figure which has risen sharply from €23.8 billion just under a decade ago.

Italy's youngest generation has been disproportionately affected by the economic crisis and ongoing employment crisis.

Young Italians were famously branded 'bamboccioni' (big babies) by ex-Italian finance minister Tomasso Padoa-Schiopa in 2007 - a term which has stuck. However, in addition to economic worries, economists have argued that clingy parents are actually to blame for the high rate of young adults living at home.

Canada ‘Freeloading' Off American Innovation, Pfizer CEO Says

Canada and other countries with universal health care systems are keeping drugs cheap by “freeloading” off of American innovation, says the chief executive of one of the world’s largest pharma companies.

“Canada is cheaper because of (drug) ration(ing). And Canada is cheaper because ... it freerides off American innovation,” Pfizer CEO Ian Read said in an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. last week.

Asked what he would do about it, Read suggested negotiating tougher free trade deals that would reduce the ability of governments to pay less for drugs, such as through longer patent terms.

“You need good trade agreements where intellectual property is protected,” he said, according to a transcript of the appearance. Read noted Pfizer did not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because it did not do enough to extend pharma patents.

Unlike Britain, France and numerous other countries with universal health care, Canada does not have a universal prescription drug benefit. A 2012 study suggested some 10 per cent of Canadians struggle with the cost of medication.

With some US$53 billion in annual revenue, Pfizer is among the world’s largest pharmaceutical makers. It’s behind such innovations as the cholesterol drug Lipitor, the anti-acne ingredient tetracycline, and Viagra.

Read suggested by rejecting coverage of certain drugs, single-payer health care systems are in effect preventing patients from accessing the best new medicine available.

“Say there were 100 new products authorized in the United States. Australia and New Zealand, their population only has access to 30 per cent of them. The U.K., they have access to 47 per cent of them, normally, two to three years later than the U.S.,” he said.

Read made an argument familiar to those in the pharma industry: That developing drugs is extremely costly, and U.S. patients and insurance companies are in effect subsidizing cheaper drugs for other countries.

“Without the U.S. market, there would not be the tremendous expansion in the innovative therapies that are available today and will be available in the future,” he said. “Basically, you're seeing Europe freeriding on American innovation.”

Read cited data from Boston University showing how developing a new drug takes 10 to 15 years and costs US$2.6 billion on average.

“Pfizer spends $8 billion a year on research and development,” he added. “We’re lucky if we produce three (new) drugs a year.”

The Pfizer headquarters in New York City on October 29, 2015. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

How to cool a red-hot housing market

Animal spirits still rule Canada’s real estate scene, working urban markets into a froth. But there are ways to tame them.

When the federal budget landed last week, Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa was disappointed in at least one respect. Sousa had pressed the Liberal government to do something about the province’s overheated real estate market, specifically in the Greater Toronto Area, where the average selling price for homes soared 27.7 per cent compared to the year before, to $875,983. Sousa advocated higher capital gains taxes on the sale of homes that are not primary residences, arguing it would dissuade flippers and speculators, while helping first-time buyers get into the market. But the feds opted not to tinker with capital gains taxes. With the Ontario budget expected soon, Sousa is now promising to take action at the provincial level.

Toronto and Vancouver are by far the country’s most heated housing markets, but other cities are showing signs of strain, too. The latest Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey pegs Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Kelowna, B.C. and Hamilton, Ont. as “seriously unaffordable” (the report generally blames “urban containment” policies for affordability issues, and favours more development).

Governments at all levels have tools to address runaway prices and ease conditions for first-time buyers. Here are a few key options:

Restrict access to credit

With interest rates so low, financing to buy real estate has been cheap and easy to obtain. The federal government could make it more difficult for housing mad Canadians by erecting additional hurdles—shortening mortgage amortization periods, raising the five-percent minimum down payment required for buyers who need CMHC insurance, or upping the qualifying rate for a standard five-year fixed mortgage. Slowing credit would cut some potential buyers out of the market, and help prevent Canadians from getting overleveraged. By dampening demand, prices could cool, too.

The federal government has already implemented six rounds of these so-called “macroprudential” changes since 2008. There is room to tighten further, but it’s unlikely at this point. First of all, the impact on the housing market is short-lived (see chart below). Beata Caranci, chief economist at TD Bank Group, says housing markets cool for about six months following a rule change, and then pick up again. “What we’ve seen the last couple of times is those rules are becoming less and less effective,” she says. The last round of changes announced in October, which increased stress testing rules for borrowers, did virtually nothing to curtail the surge in Toronto home prices.

These rule changes are a blunt instrument, and apply to markets across the country—not just Toronto and Vancouver. The mortgage industry is still aggrieved about the changes, partially for that reason. Will Dunning, chief economist for industry group Mortgage Professionals Canada, made a submission to the Standing Committee on Finance recently, arguing the changes will “weaken the broader economy.”

Boost supply

The real estate industry’s favoured option is simply to build more housing. There are a range of measures at the municipal and provincial levels that could help, wrote Scotiabank chief economist Jean-François Perrault in a recent report, such as increasing density allowances in certain neighbourhoods, streamlining development applications and introducing incentives to encourage more construction of rental units. “Supply is the key bottleneck,” Perrault says of the GTA.

The vexing issue for some developers in Ontario is the Greenbelt, 810,000 hectares of protected land in the southern part of the province. Some argue such restrictive land use policies contribute to rising prices by limiting supply. But the Neptis Foundation, a non-profit research group, released a study last year arguing there is still plenty of room to grow. Only 20 per cent of the land designated for development has been used up since 2006. “Simply removing the Greenbelt therefore won’t bring any more supply to the market,” wrote BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic recently.

In Toronto, the supply issue is really about the composition of the housing market, Kavcic argues. Traditional detached homes are indeed a rare thing in the city today. But that doesn’t entirely explain the recent surge in prices. Kavcic points out condos posted double-digit price increases too, meaning something else—either foreign buyers or speculation—is at play.

Tax foreign buyers

The Toronto Real Estate Board is already pushing back against the possibility of this measure, arguing foreign buyers are a positive force in the local housing market. TREB says its data show non-resident buyers make up 4.9 per cent of transactions and that most of them purchase a home “as a residence, a home for another family member to live in, or as an investment to rent out.” Condo developer Brad Lamb went so far as to warn targeting non-residents could “precipitate a Canada-wide recession.”

Vancouver’s experience shows the industry’s fear-mongering is just that. Since implementing a 15-percent property-transfer charge for foreign nationals last summer, Vancouver’s housing market has slowed but avoided collapse. Sales dropped 42 per cent year-over-year, and price appreciation significantly eased. The effect may only be temporary, though: the Teranet-National Bank House Price Index shows Vancouver is up 1.7 per cent so far this year.

BMO chief economist Doug Porter says a foreign buyer tax would be a good place for Toronto to start. It’s limited in scope, and allows the government room to take more drastic measures if necessary. “I just don’t see what the harm would be in trying it,” Porter says. New condo buildings, which require a high percentage of units to be sold before construction begins, could be exempted. “There’s a case to be made that the foreign investor element is one of the reasons these new condo developments are getting done,” Porter says.

There could be unintended consequences, though. Money is fluid. Just as Vancouver’s tax pushed foreign investors eastward, a levy in Toronto could push them to other major cities, such as Calgary.

Tax speculators

In Toronto, roughly 17 per cent of homes were resold within two years as of March 2016, up from nine per cent a year earlier. That, says Caranci at TD, is a sign that speculators and flippers are at work and potentially driving up prices.

Perrault at Scotiabank favours a speculation tax to reign in this activity. The land transfer tax, for example, could be retooled so that the seller of a property incurs fees. The shorter the duration of ownership, the higher the levy. This measure would apply to a wider range of buyers, not just foreign investors. The goal is not to quash speculation entirely, which Perrault says plays an important role in the market, but to make it more costly and put “a little bit of sand in the wheels.”

An important component is to ensure the tax is revenue neutral. Cash raised from the tax could be allotted to affordable housing, Perrault says, helping to ease supply issues in the region.

Tax vacant homes

Slapping a tariff on properties that sit empty is another way to force more supply onto the market and ease price gains. In January, Vancouver implemented Canada’s first such tax. Owners of secondary homes are required to rent them out for at least half the year or face a one-percent charge based on the value of the property. The city estimated last year that as many as 20,000 properties were empty or under-used.

The situation in Toronto is not as bad as in Vancouver, according to Warren Lovely, head of public-sector research and strategy at National Bank. Still, a modest vacant-home tax could make sense for Toronto. “When a market’s this tight,” Lovely wrote in a recent note, “every incentive to free up properties should be examined closely.”

"Trickle Down" Has Failed; Wealth and Income Have "Trickled Up" to the Top .5%

Central bank policies have generated a truly unprecedented "trickle-up" of wealth and income to the top .5%.

Over the past 20 years, central banks have run a gigantic real-world experiment called "trickle-down." The basic idea is Keynesian (i.e. the mystical and comically wrong-headed cargo-cult that has entranced the economics profession for decades): monetary stimulus (lowering interest rates to zero, juicing liquidity, quantitative easing, buying bonds and other assets-- otherwise known as free money for financiers) will "trickle down" from banks, financiers and corporations who are getting the nearly free money in whatever quantities they desire to wage earners and the bottom 90% of households.

The results of the experiment are now conclusive: "trickle-down" has failed, miserably, totally, completely.

It turns out (duh!) that corporations didn't use the central bank's free money for financiers to increase wages; they used it to fund stock buy-backs that enriched corporate managers and major shareholders.

The central bank's primary assumption was that inflating asset bubbles in stocks, bonds and housing would "lift all boats"--but this assumption was faulty. It turns out most of the financial wealth of the nation is held by the top 5%.

As for housing--yes, a relative few (those who happened to own modest bungalows in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Toronto, Vancouver, Brooklyn, etc.) on the left and right coasts have registered spectacular gains in home appreciation as the housing bubbles in these cities now dwarf the 2006-07 real estate bubble. But on average, the gains in home appreciation have barely offset the declines in real (adjusted for inflation) household income.

These charts illustrate the abject failure of the "trickle-down" economic theory.The majority of the assets that have soared in value are owned by the top 5%:

Wages as a share of GDP (gross domestic product, i.e. the nation's total economic activity) has been declining for decades:

The only segment of households who have registered gain in real income over the past 20 years is the top 5%:

Even excluding capital gains--the source of much of the wealthiest class's income--wealth disparity has reached astonishing asymmetries: most of the gains are flowing to the top 0.5%:

The Clinton, Bush and Obama presidencies shared one commonality: the wealth of the bottom 90% cratered in their presidencies while the wealth of the top .1% skyrocketed.

Central bank policies have generated a truly unprecedented "trickle-up" of wealth and income to the top .5%. Evidence supporting "trickle down" is nowhere to be found, at least in the real world.

Ask an average American who makes a habit of following government-mouthpiece corporate media about interference in national elections and you’ll likely elicit a nebulous response concerning Russian hackers and a plan to install Donald Trump in the White House — but you probably won’t hear a single syllable pertaining to United States government’s actual attempts to do the same.

On Monday, FBI Director James Comey confirmed for the first time publicly that the bureau is officially investigating hotly contentious allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election — but, even if proven true, such geopolitical escapades better characterize the routine behavior of accuser than of accused.

“The F.B.I., as part of our counterintelligence effort, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 president election,” the director announced, adding the bureau would conduct a probe to discern whether Trump’s associates had contact with Russian officials.

Despite that the U.S. has hypocritically exerted influence over foreign elections in all corners of the globe — in fact, it has arrogantly done so a whopping 81 times between 1946 and 2000, alone — with just one-third of those operations undertaken overtly.

For months, mainstream media parroted murky accusations hurled by politicians — keen to point a finger of blame for the apparently stultifying victory of a former reality television host on someone — that The Russians had somehow surreptitiously undermined the election-centric foundation of American Democracy.

While that has yet to prove true, this new Red Scare constitutes a duplicitous attempt by the pot to call the kettle … an election meddler.

Researcher Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy — an expert on the topic at hand — discussed the lengthy but incomplete list of times the U.S. government has interfered in other nations’ elections with NPR’s Ari Shapiro.

One example of that was our intervention in Serbia, Yugoslavia in the 2000 election there. Slobodan Milosevic was running for re-election, and we didn’t want him to stay in power there due to his tendency, you know, to disrupt the Balkans and his human rights violations.

So we intervened in various ways for the opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica. And we gave funding to the opposition, and we gave them training and campaigning aide. And according to my estimate, that assistance was crucial in enabling the opposition to win.

Levin reiterated the more blatant methods with which the U.S. asserts dominance — through the overt coups or all-out regime changes branding the nation a notorious interventionist — are not among the list of the 80-plus attempts to manipulate the electoral outcome.

As for the issue of pot versus kettle, Levin explained that — although Russia and other powerful nations indisputably employ similar tactics — the United States has been quite prodigious in its effort.

Well, for my dataset, the United States is the most common user of this technique. Russia or the Soviet Union since 1945 has used it half as much. My estimate has been 36 cases between 1946 to 2000. We know also that the Chinese have used this technique and the Venezuelans when the late Hugo Chavez was still in power in Venezuela and other countries.